Etimology
From Middle English leder, ledere, from Old English lǣdere (“leader”), equivalent to lead + -er. Cognate with Scots ledar, leidar (“leader”), West Frisian lieder (“leader”), Dutch leider (“leader”), German Leiter (“leader, conductor, manager”), Danish leder (“leader, manager”), Swedish ledare (“leader, conductor, director”), Icelandic leiðari (“leader, conductor”).
noun
leader (plural leaders)
Any person who leads or directs.
An animal that leads.
Someone or something that leads or conducts.
Examples
In an era when political leaders promise deliverance from decline through America’s purported preeminence in scientific research, the news that science is in deep trouble in the United States has been as unwelcome as a diagnosis of leukemia following the loss of health insurance.
Follow the leader.
We elected her team leader.
Synonyms: chief, chieftain, commander
America needs not only an administrator, but a leader - a pathfinder, a blazer of the trail to the high road that will avoid the bottomless morass of crass materialism that has engulfed so many of the great civilizations of the past.
On the other hand, I must think of Korea and, particularly, of the three million enslaved Koreans in the North. My obligation as a leader of the Korean people is to achieve unification of our country by peaceful means if possible but by force if necessary.
The leader is the man who knows the way of the overlords but identifies with the life of the oppressed.
Leader of the House of Commons
Senate Majority Leader
The company is the leader in home remodeling in the county.
Synonym: conductor
The gesture of licking and nipping a leader's muzzle is similar to the food-begging behavior of wolf pups and may be related to it.
Synonyms: alpha, pack leader
Still there are many passages in his [Donne's] writings, where it is plain that he forgot to pull in his leaders; and they gallop away with him at times over hill and dale, over ploughed land and waste.
Antonym: wheeler
: Synonyms: guide, conductor
A strong central leader may result in essentially horizontal branches resembling a "telephone pole."
If you need to reload film, the cassette can be rewound slightly by turning the hub located on one end of its spool. Do not rewind so much that the leader disappears into the cassette.
The leader only runs three seconds, but it acts like a drop curtain in a theater.
when two wheels geer together, the one which communicates the motion to the other is called the driver or leader; and the wheel impelled is the follower
Synonyms: driver, drive wheel
Related words
antonyms
follower